TCN says blackout temporary as grid suffers third collapse; power restored in parts of Lagos, Ibadan, others
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said it had restored power to the national grid after a ”temporary disturbance” that lasted for some hours.
On Saturday 19 morning the national power grid collapsed again marking the third such incident in one week.
Many Nigerians might be in for a long and dark weekend over the latest grid collapse which occurred around 8:16 am when power generation dropped to 00MW, plunging businesses, homes, and critical infrastructures into darkness.
The nationwide blackout comes four days after the grid tripped off as it was being restored after an earlier collapse on Monday.
Checks confirmed that power generation stood at 3,042 megawatts at 8 am and peaked at 3,968MW at 7 am.
However, generation dropped to 47MW as of 9 am, with allocation to power distribution companies standing at 0.00MW at the time of filing this report.
Meanwhile, data from the Nigerian System Operator’s portal (niggrid.org), revealed that the grid recorded an unprecedented zero Megawatts (MW) as of 8:16 am today.
The data also revealed that all 22 generation companies (GenCos) are down as of the time of this report.
But the national grid is gradually coming up as power has been restored in various parts of Lagos and Ibadan. Power supply was restored at 1.25pm on Saturday.
As at 1.20pm, the national grid had 450 megawatts (MW) of electricity. While Ikeja had 130 MW, Eko had amased 70MW. Benin DisCo had 70MW, while Ibadan had been given 100MW. Abuja, on the other hand, had 80MW.
The cause of the latest disturbance could not be ascertained as of press time as the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has yet to comment on the development.
The collapse marked the eighth time the national grid has collapsed in 2024, highlighting the age-long challenges plaguing Nigeria’s power sector.
The first grid collapse of the year occurred on February 4 at approximately 11:51 AM, as the capacity on the TCN-managed grid plummeted from 2,407 megawatts to just 31MW by noon, before it completely shut down by 1 PM.
